Pipino Cuevas: Left Like A Mule, Right for the Hall

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By Anthony “Zute” George

Jose Pipino Cuevas is sort of a forgotten welterweight champion. Oh, he is remembered, but for all the wrong reasons. Pipino presents more as a stepping stone for Thomas Hearns, and all those ugly loses which came after that. Wrong reasons. There was even an article that had Cuevas on a shortlist of fighters who were not deserving of their induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Indeed, if you take a peek at Cuevas’ record of 35-15, 31 KO’s, perhaps you can come to such a conclusion. However, Pipino is an onion that is worth peeling. Only then will you see just how worthy he is.

Cuevas turned professional when he was fourteen years old, yes fourteen. He did so without any fanfare, durable backing, or protection; thus, he was put in tough and suffered many losses early in his career. Including in his first fight, where he was knocked out in the second round. However, having your career start as sort of a trial by fire comes with benefits, if you indeed have the intestinal fortitude to overcome the many bumps and bruises along the way. Despite losing a 10-round decision to Andy Price, Cuevas improved and earned a shot at the WBA welterweight championship, which was held by Angel Espada. Espada was a veteran who won the title by beating the tough Clyde Gray in a 15-round decision.

Going into the fight, Cuevas was a considerable underdog, after all, he was coming off a loss and had to be considered as an easy defense by the Espada people. But there was nothing ever easy about tasting Cuevas’ power, and he stopped Espada in the second round. With the victory, Cuevas became the youngest person to ever win the welterweight title at the age of 18; a record that is still held to this day.

Cuevas went on to defend his welterweight title an impressive 11 times, all but one ended with a bone-crunching knockout. Pipino’s money punch during this run was his left hook, a devastating punch that was beautiful to watch. A conversation came up once in a boxing discussion thread on social media, asking who had the best left hook in boxing, while this is almost an impossible question to answer, I nominated Pipino, as his left hook was undoubtedly one of the more productive I have seen. I was immediately chastised for my choice because Pipino threw his left hook too wide, although the chastiser admitted that Pipino’s left hook, ‘hit like a mule.’ When I cited Pipino, I did so for that reason, as technique should never trump effectiveness, as you could throw a perfect left hook and it might not have the same effectiveness of Pipino’s.

Of course, Pipino’s success came to a sudden halt when he ran into the devastating power of a young welterweight named Thomas Hearns. By then, Cuevas was a very old twenty-two-year-old, who had already fought more than eight, grueling years. With that said, Hearns probably would have always been a bad matchup for him.

But Cuevas’s career up until that point should be enough to be appreciated and warrant hall of fame credentials. The fact that he still holds the honor of the youngest ever to win the welterweight crown, considering all the belts that are available to win today, is astonishing. His 11 title defenses are only surpassed by Felix Trinidad with 15 at the weight class; Jose Napoles also has 11. Regardless of the competition, a champion always has a target on their back. They face the best version of their opponent virtually every time out. Pipino passed those tests and did so with epic knockouts.

The one knock on Pipino that is credible is that he never unified the title against Carlos Palomino, the WBC champion for a great deal of Pipino’s run. Like Cuevas, Carlos is also under-appreciated today, and he also possessed a devastating left hook. Carlos told me that the plan was to fight Pipino after he fought Wilfred Benítez in January of 1979, as Carlos was fixing to retire in 1979 and wanted to do so as a unified champion. But Carlos was beaten by Benitez, then a guy named Duran moved up in weight, then along came a guy named Leonard, then a guy named Hearns.

Some boxing fans speculate what might have transpired if Leonard fought Cuevas instead of Benitez, leaving the hall of famer Benitez for Hearns. You have to realize just how much control Leonard and his people had of their situation. Had Team Leonard felt that Pipino was the easier path, not that any path was easy, they would have positioned themselves to fight the Mexican champion. But Leonard, Angelo Dundee and Mike Trainer were shrewd enough to know that they did not want to test Cuevas’s power if they did not have to.

Boxing could be an enormous Rorschach Test. When looking at the career of Pipino Cuevas, I see one of the most prolific, successful, and exciting welterweight champions of all time. Indeed, he probably hung around longer than he should have, but is that not a characteristic rash of the sport? His poor record later in his career should not mar what he accomplished as a champion. Jose Pipino Cuevas represented the glamour division of boxing with great pride and determination. And that is what he should be remembered for.

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